Not so surprisingly, Alana felt really cruddy about trying to keep her new relationship a secret from her brother. She'd never kept a secret from him before, and she tried to keep from lying to him. Seems like that she was all she was doing now. But she knew that if Two Bit knew about her and Steve, he'd have a heart attack and try to lock her in the dungeon. Not that they actually had a dungeon, but you know what I mean.

It was hard, keeping it from Two Bit, but he wasn't very observant. Alana was just glad they weren't trying to keep it a secret from everyone. Take Beth, for instance. The day after Alana and Steve started going together; Beth came over to hang out. All it took was one look at Alana's face and she knew something was up.

"Okay!" She demanded. "What's going on? Did Boing Kitty eat your shoelace again?"

Leave it to Beth. Well, Alana wasn't very surprised. She and Beth had been best friends forever, so they can always tell when something's going on. They bonded in the first grade, when Artie Lobell whipped out his you-know-what in the lunch line. Beth, having never seen one before, was totally shocked. Alana, on the other hand, had spent the last six years living with Two Bit. She just looked Artie in the eye and said, "I've seen bigger."

Artie never exposed himself again and that cemented Alana and Beth's friendship.

Anyway, Beth looked closely at her best friend. "Does this have something to do with Steve?"

"Shh! Two Bit's in the next room!" Alana quickly shut her bedroom door. "I don't want him to know!"

"Oh, sorry." Beth shrugged. She was lucky, Alana thought, she didn't have to keep her boyfriend a secret from one of the most important people in her life.

Now, here it was two weeks later. Beth had spent the night and they'd been up most of it, talking about Steve and Ponyboy. Seemed like that was all they talked about now.

"Hey," Two Bit was knocking on the door. Beth and Alana exchanged panicked looks. Had he heard? "Mom's making pancakes." He opened the door. "You want?"

Alana shrugged. "Sure. She's cooking?"

"Yeah, and singing. Her date must've gone well." Two Bit shuddered. "What if they get married? Mr. Donaldson might move in here. It would be like being in school all the time! He might talk about books at the table and-."

"Two Bit, it's only been three dates. It isn't time to worry yet." Alana nodded. "So stop freaking out, okay?"

"Right, okay." He paused, then smiled and shut the door behind him. He and Alana had made up the day after their fight and Alana had been feeling increasingly worse ever since.

"I feel like crap." Alana flopped back on her bed.

"Why's that?"

"I hate having to lie when I wanna see Steve. This really sucks. I hate lying to my brother."

Beth nodded. "I know."

"Girls?" Mrs. Matthews was knocking on the door. "Come on out, Erik's here!"

"Erik?" Alana whispered. "Who's…ah, crap."

Beth and Alana made their way into the kitchen and sure enough, Mr. Donaldson was sitting at the table, next to Two Bit, who was spreading peanut butter on his pancakes and looking extremely nervous.

"Hello, Alana, hello Beth." Mr. Donaldson said.

"Er, Hi." Beth answered. Alana nodded and looked around in amazement. Someone had actually cleaned the house! She practically passed out in shock.

"Aren't you going to say hi to Erik, Alana?" Mrs. Matthews asked.

"Oh, yeah. Uh, hi." She was trying to stifle giggles, as Two Bit was making fish faces behind Mr. Donaldson and their mother's back. She and Beth sat down quickly and ate the pancakes Mrs. Matthews gave them.

"Well," Mr. Donaldson said after a few minutes. "Are you ready to go, Helen?"

"Go?" Two Bit demanded around a mouth full of peanut butter. "Go where?"

"Erik and I are going to the race track."

"Mom, you don't gamble." Alana pointed out.

Her mother just shook her head. "We'll be back later." She told her children.

"Well, how do you like that?" Two Bit said, taking the last bite of his pancake. "Blown off for the Literature teacher. What a jip!"

Alana shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Oh well." Two Bit opened the fridge and pulled out a few bottles of beer. "I'm goin' to Soda's. You two wanna tag along?"

"Sure."

"Alana, you better get dressed first." He pointed out.

Alana looked down, and sure enough, she was still in her pink and white striped nightgown. Her teacher had seen her in her nightgown. This was almost as bad as him seeing her in her underwear.

Two Bit and Beth were both laughing. Alana glared at her brother. "I hate you."

"Oh, but wuv you!" He planted a big, sloppy kiss on the side of her head. "Now, go get dressed, or I'll tell everyone that Mr. Donaldson saw you in you nightie."

"It is not a nightie!" She said witheringly.

Unfortunately, Two Bit did tell everyone about Mr. Donaldson seeing Alana in her nightgown.

"-And, so there's Alana in this stupid pink and white nightie with teddy bears on the front-."

"You bought it for me for Christmas!" Alana protested. "And it's not a nightie! How many freakin' times do I gotta tell ya? It's a nightgown! NIGHTGOWN."

Two Bit rolled his eyes. "Okay, Fine. A nightgown, then. Anyway, she standin' there in her nightgown and doesn't even realize it and Mr. Donaldson's all, hey baby, you're lookin' good-."

"Hey was not!" Beth protested. "You are such a liar, Two Bit Matthews! I don't think he even noticed Alana. He was too busy staring at your mom."

"Yeah," Two Bit's voice turned bitter. "So he can take her to the race track. She doesn't even gamble!"

"You don't have to gamble to go to the track, you know." Pony pointed out.

"I know, but he'll probably trick her into it or something."

"That doesn't sound very likely." Soda said.

"Yeah." Steve added.

Two Bit was surprised; Steve had actually kept quiet up till now. He'd never known Steve to keep his opinions to himself. But now, he was just sitting there on the couch, next to Alana…why was he sitting next to Alana? And why did he keep looking at her?

Two Bit had figured out that Steve had set his sights on his baby sister, but Alana was too smart to get involved with him. Wasn't she? It's not like they were doing anything, just sitting there. And as hard as he had tried, he couldn't keep her away from Steve. She never listened to him, anyway. He told her and told her and she just kept right on, doing her own thing.

Ah…well… it isn't like he had any proof.

Steve wondered why Two Bit kept looking at him. Did he know about him and Alana? Maybe he shouldn't have sat next to her. But they weren't sitting that close together, not like Pony and Beth, who were practically on top of each other, they were so close. Of course, they were sharing the arm chair, so it was a tight squeeze.

Alana noticed immediately that Steve and Two Bit were giving each other the ol' hair eyeball. It made her nervous. Steve kept brushing her hand and she was dying to kiss him again, but not here in front of everybody. This was harder than she thought. She would have to figure out a way to tellher brother,and soon. Besides, what could he do? He couldn't keep them apart. Okay, he might get mad, but that wouldn't be so bad.

Yeah, right. If she had known how bad it was going to get, Alana would run screaming in thye other direction.

"I hate school." Beth announced a little while later.

"Uh, okay." Soda said. "That was random."

Actually, it wasn't. Pony was helping her with her science homework, but Soda wasn't paying attention.

"I just don't get it." Beth continued as if Sodapop had never spoken.

"Me either." Alana agreed.

Pony was flipping through Beth's notebook. "This is exactly why you two don't get it." He said, finally stopping on a certain page. "If you'd pay attention instead of doing stuff like this, it might make more sense."

"Yes, daddy." Alana said.

Soda snatched the notebook off the table, looked at the page Pony had turned to, and started to read it out loud.

The Beth Richards Top 10 Cutest Guy List (compiled during science, with added commentary by Alana Matthews)

1. Ponyboy Curtis (disagree! Not that I don't think Pony is cute, because he is, but I've known him too long to think of him as anything but a brother.)

2. Sodapop Curtis (agree! Now, I know I've known him as long as I've known Pony, but sheesh! Soda is gorgeous!

3. Two Bit Matthews (disagree! He's my brother! Not only is that completely sick and inappropriate, it's also illegal in the great state of Oklahoma.)

4. Steve Randle (AGREE! I must force myself to stop thinking about Steve's amazing hands, lips, shoulders, eyes, kisses…uh, wait. Can I start over?)

5. Elvis (agree! He might be getting old, but he's still hot.)

6. Mike from The Monkees (agree! There's something kinda sexy about that green sock cap he wears.)

7. John Lennon (agree! What can I say? I'm a sucker for Brits.)

8. That guy in the Levi jeans add in the back of this month's Cosmo (agree! Who IS that guy? They should give him his own TV show or something.)

9. James Dean (duh!)

10. Caption of the Walt Whitman High Fightin' Falcons football team, Alex Kent (strongly disagree! He's a soc! And his big, fat, socy head is out of proportion with his stupid, meat body!)

"Well," Ponyboy said when Soda finished reading. "That was interesting."

"Yeah," Two Bit added. "It was." He was looking directly at Steve and Alana and she realized too late what was written about Steve. Oh crap. Now he knew how she felt about him. Oh crap.

"You think I'm cuter than Ponyboy!" Soda asked. "Alana, I knew I always loved you."

"Uh, Alana?" Two Bit asked. His voice sounded funny. "Can I talk to you outside?"

Alana almost choked. She glanced at Steve and met his eyes. They both knew what was about to happen.

"Uh, sure…" She got up and followed him out the door.

"Why don't we go in the kitchen?" Ponyboy suggested. "I have a bad feeling this is about to get ugly."

Steve nodded. He felt like he was about to be sick. He knew that Two Bit was bound to catch on sooner or later, but he was really hoping it would be the latter.

"Should I be out there with her?" He asked Soda. "I mean, this is about me, too."

"But it's between them right now." Pony pointed out. "If you go out Two Bit's liable to start something."

"Uh, no offense, Pony." Beth said. "But I think something's already been started."

They kitchen fell quiet and sure enough, you could hear Two Bit and Alana shouting at each other.

"How long has it been going on, Alana?" Two Bit demanded as soon as they were out the door.

"What?" She asked, feigning stupidity.

"This thing with you and that craddle robber, Steve!"

"Two weeks." She answered. "And don't call him that!"

"Two weeks? Who else knows?"

"Beth, Soda, Pony, and Darry."

"Everyone but me. Why am I not surprised?" Two Bit shook his head in disgust. "Wereyouplanning on telling me any time soon?"

"Uh, yes?" She tried to crack a smile, tried to get him to see the humor in the situation. Alana hadn't seen her brother this angry, or hurt, since…since the night he came home crying about Johnny and Dally.

"You could have told me, Alana." He said. He had stopped yelling, but this tone was worse. "I might not have liked it, but you could have told me."

"I didn't want you to get mad." She said lamely.

"Well, that plan didn't work very well, now did it?" Two Bit spat out. "You know, whatever. I'm finished. Just go back to your boyfriend." He stalked to his car and drove away. Alana watched him; he didn't even stop at the STOP sign at the end of the road.

She sat down on the front steps and cried and cried. Finally, she felt someone's arm's around here, leading her back into the house. She caught a whiff of peppermint and knew that it was Steve.

"He hates me." She sobbed into his shirt front. "We should've just told him from the beginning."

"He doesn't hate you." Pony said. "He's just mad that you…we didn't tell him. He'll get over it."

Alana shrugged and continued to cry.

This was bad.

Steve spent most of the afternoon trying to cheer Alana up, but he felt nearly as bad as she did. Maybe he should have talked to Two Bit before chasing after his little sister.

"Who died?" Darry asked when he walked through the door and saw all the gloomy faces.

"Two Bit." Alana said vaguely.

"Two Bit died? How come no one called me?"

"No," Pony rolled his eyes. "He's not dead. He's mad."

Steve snorted. "That's understatement of the century." He said.

"He knows, doesn't he?" Darry looked from Alana to Steve. They nodded. "Ah, well, give him time. He'll get over it. I think."

"Thanks Darry." Steve said sarcastically. "You're so reassuring."

"Look, it's after five." Darry said. "And it's been a long day. Steve, maybe you should get these girls home."

"Yeah." Alana nodded. "We can try to talk to my brother, Steve."

"Okay." Steve wasn't so sure that would work, but he was willing to try. Two Bit was one of his best friends; he could stand the thought of him being mad.

Steve's car was silent on the trip home. No one felt much like talking. Two Bit's car wasn't there when they pulled into the driveway, but Mr. Donaldson's was.

"Great." Alana muttered. "Well, let's go."

Alana got an eerie feeling as they walked into the house. It was quiet, too quiet and Mr. Donaldson was sitting at the table. He jumped up when he saw them.

"Alana, thank God." He said. "You're mother's at the hospital, there's been an accident."

Alana felt her knee's growing weak. "Mom…?"

"No, it's Two Bit." Mr. Donaldson ducked his head. "He's in critical condition. They don't know if…" He trailed off. "Come on, we have to get to the hospital."

"We can take my car." Steve said. "Beth, you stay here and call the Curtis'. Let them know what's going on. They can pick you up on their way to the hospital."

"Okay." Beth nodded and hurried towards the phone.

"This is all my fault." Alana whispered as she climbed back into Steve's car.

Author's Note: Haha! A cliffhanger! Bow to my superiorness! Uh..yeah..sorry about that. Anyway, poor Two Bit! Wah! He had to find out though. A lot of people are probably wondering why I'm goin through this story so fast. It's because I want to get it done and I won't have time in the next few weeks. Oh, and I know things maybe getting a litle soap opera like, but hey, it's just a story!